I walked into the front office at the writing cabin and spread the artwork across Lisa’s desk. “What do you think?”
“Ooh, I like it,” Lisa said. “It has some similarities to the first Notebook, but it stands out as its own book too. What’s your plan now?”
“I’m out with beta readers right now. I already got one full read, and some great catches. One of them involved names, and you missed it too.”
“My spellchecker must have seen it as a real name.”
“It is, so I changed the name completely to make it simpler.”
“When the betas are finished will you publish it then?
“Not quite. While they’re working, we have some stuff to do ourselves. You need some promotional artwork.” I spread a list of story titles in front of her.
Lisa sifted through the titles, and pointed. “This one, for sure.”
“Last Flight of the Rocket-Men? I figured that would catch your eye. You love the rocket-pack. Do you suppose it should be Rocket-Men, or Rocketmen?”
“You could ask your blog friends.”
“Good idea, we need one more. Make a star next to that one.”
“A star, really? I’ll make an electronic list and use a cute emoji. It’s the twenty-first century, you know.”
“Fine.”
“I’m not feeling some of these. There isn’t much chance for me to be fun in a poster.”
“How about Jason Fogg? It could be like a romance cover with you in the shower, and fog swirling all around. He could be kind of visible, but kind of not at the same time.”
“Veto.”
“What do you mean, veto? I’m the boss.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“I would never let you be completely nude. You know that right. Most of those book covers show a shoulder or something.”
“It isn’t that. I’m not shy or anything.”
“Okay, so why not?”
“Jason Fogg creeps me the hell out, that’s why.”
“Is it his addiction?”
“If you want to call it that.”
“He’s trying really hard to get over it.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever have confidence in him. What else do you have?”
“Not all of these will work, but that’s always the case. Parade Wave, Magpies, Practical Geology. I’m not feeling it.”
“What about Fever, or Career Move? Or Angel, I would make a great angel. I still have my Victoria’s Secret wings.”
“That’s a good reason why not. Everyone’s seen the wings already. Questing might be a good one too. Maybe you could be like a scream queen prisoner.
“That could be kind of fun. We could have done Night Bump Radio, but I borrowed the idea already.”
“I need to think about it some more. Meanwhile; why don’t you get Sean Harrington on the line and see if he has a few ideas.”
“I’m on it.”
***
Okay, so I have cover art, and it looks pretty darned good. I need to get Lisa situated, but we’ll figure something out. Question for you authors out there, do you prefer Rocket-Men, or Rocketmen?
Love the cover art, plus your wallpaper is awesomely creepy!
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Thanks. I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So Rocket-Men or Rocketmen?
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I don’t know if it’s “correct” but I like the look of Rocketmen.
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Thank you.
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I’d go with rocketmen.
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That’s two for Rocketmen, thanks.
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Tough question. Rocketmen is a little weird for me only because I remember a bad comedy called Rocketman. Rocket-Men feels better to me since that makes it clear it’s a human with a rocket instead of some kind of cyborg. Probably comes down to personal preference.
Too bad you can’t have Lisa getting the best of Jason Fogg.
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I kind of like the hyphen, but the input isn’t going that direction.
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Ditch the hyphen for sure – Elton John had a gap for Rocket Man so running it together makes it more cosy for being plural… not too much room in those rockets either, so I’m told! 😉
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Ditching the hyphen seems to be the popular choice. What if it’s a specific military job? I suppose Green Beret’s doesn’t have a hyphen.
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I dig this cover!
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That’s what I need to hear. Thanks so much. I tried to keep the theme with the other one, but make it stand out as its own book of yarns.
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Rocketmen for sure. Though if you have a grammar program, it’ll probably give you trouble. The flying eye/octopus monster is creepy, lol.
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He’s supposed to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It’s a spoof religion. Rocketmen seems to be winning out overall.
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An apt name: the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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Rocketmen. Of course, you could go all PC and do the rocket person bit.
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Rocketmen it is. I searched and repaired last night.
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🙂
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The cover is great. I’d go for Rocket Men though
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Thank you, Kate.
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Egads, how did I miss this?!?!? I positively LOVE the cover! It’s a perfect follow-up for the old one. Congrats!
And I think you could go either way with the name, although I kind of prefer it separated too, although that seems to be the minority (Rocket Men). It seems more 50ish sci-fi to me, which I like.
BTW, great Notebook. I’m almost done with my beta and will have feedback to you soon!
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Wow, you’re tearing through it. Much appreciated. Short stories are like that though.
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The book cover: what, no snails?
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No snail story this time. I thought about using snails instead of Roman numerals though. I don’t know if there will be more volumes, or not. The cover could get pretty crowded if I write more of these.
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I liked the look of Rocket-Men in the title better, but then I remembered how navy divers used to be called frogmen, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t hypenated.
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That’s the best sales line yet. I kind of liked the hyphenated version, but the masses prefer it the other way. Thanks for the frogmen tip.
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Rocketmen, with no hyphen. I’m doing a share the love post soon, so send me the promo stuff for the new notebook and I’ll include it. Love the cover!
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Thanks. I won’t have a purchase link until nearly September.
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Oh, right. Sept. is an excellent time for your launch. Mark me down for then, too. I like to do the posts quarterly, anyway.
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Sounds wonderful.
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